2007-12-21

Somebody game me a tuit (it was round. I got a round tuit, er around to it...) and here I am with the answer to the last Headline Puzzle and the new one. If anyone sees me doing this "wrong" somehow, please leave a comment!

So the headlines were...

US TONING DOWN PLEAS FOR HELP WITH AFGHAN MISSION GATES SAYS AT BALI CLIMATE CONFERENCE SIGNS OF COMPROMISEHAMAS POLICE ARREST AIDE TO PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTERLEBANESE ARMY GENERAL LAID TO REST IN STATE FUNERALMUSHARRAF LOOSENS ELECTION GRIP AS HIS POLLS SLIDE

2007-12-18

In the US, there's a wonderful service, more cost effective than the Post Office for almost all package-delivery applications. It's called UPS and referred to tersely and fondly as "UPS Ground". It's so addictive that given the similarity of addresses between the US and Canada for the post, US residents who have parcels to send to Canada naturally assume that Brown will get the job done.

Well, it will but... There's the little matter of a border between the two countries, and it happens that when you send things via Brown, your "gift" suddenly becomes a COD parcel, possibly challenging the value of the gift in the first place. The thought counts, and we Canadians are too polite to complain loudly to our generous friends, but seriously. For all the tackiness of "gift cards", suddenly a gift card at amazon.ca, for instance, makes a whole lot more sense.

Now, it used to be a whole lot worse. There used to be a several week delay while Brown tried to negotiate the border and send the package around in Canada using their then half-baked delivery network up here. They've gotten a lot better and are no longer a byword in bad delivery. But they are a bad deal, and if you're in the US, shipping to Canada, they're a bad deal that you probably won't hear about from your friends north of 49. We like you. The gifts you send are thoughtfully chosen and highly appropriate, 95 times out of 100. Why should we quibble about how you choose to send them to us? But there it is.

For sending parcels to Canada from the US, the post office is a better deal, if not for you, then certainly for the people you're sending to. And if their rates are just over the edge, maybe an over-the-web gift cetificate will work better. Last time I checked, those really were duty-free.

2007-12-13

A news story caught me by surprise yesterday: that the central banks of many industrialized countries, together with the American Federal Reserve have banded together to keep a money supply going, even in the face of further sub-prime mortgage meltdown red ink. The best explanation I've read so far (of course, it's from Big Brother) makes no attempt to estimate how much damage is still to come, only that the current losses add up to $60Billion and that the full extent won't be known until March 2008. The current loss is over half the amount of money that was ear-marked for easier loans this week, so I wonder if the banks have estimated the total loss already, privately, at that level. Or is this an artificial quantity, floated out there just to keep the banks liquid?

The whole thing sounds scary. Until I realize how lucky I am that I'm warm, fed and dry enough to worry about how this will affect my next re-mortgaging negotiations which aren't exactly happening in the next year.

2007-12-12

I love it. This sort of thing gets done on all kinds of fronts. Here's the original. For the rest, the next time you hear someone's position on something get ripped apart in twenty seconds or less, go back and check what the victim really said. In their own words. Without even straining the brain I can think of four or five of these, many of them high profile enough they might be familiar to you.

2007-12-11

It's been a long while since I posted to this blog last. It's not asthough I've had no opinions, it just seems that I've found so few gapsin what I'm doing to post here. I'd like to write piercing coherentthings that people will want to read, that may change some people'sminds but fitting that into being a husband, Dad, a softwaredeveloper, a commuter and a member of my community -- not to mentioncontinuing to service my reading addictions has been hard.

Call it a New Years' resolution a few weeks early but I mean to posthere more often -- perhaps with a little less attention to hotlinks --I do like to cross-reference what I'm writing to other things so thatif you haven't gotten access to the background materials that lead meto my conclusions already, at least you'll have a chance to do so.

For now, here's a fun link for the holidays:http://www.guessthiscity.com/ which is run by a friend of mine. Justsimple sets of 20 pictures or so for, as far as I know, for about 43cities. Share and Enjoy (an oblique reference to heads and pigs ispurely coincidental)

Thank you for withdrawing the so-called "Canadian DMCA". I was andhave been deeply troubled by the readiness of the government to takethe part of the purveyors of creative content against the interest ofits consumers and often of its creators as well. I urge you to take adifferent, more balanced view of the issues that are driving thisfield.

The purveyors of creative content have received a surcharge from thesale of blank media on the presumption of guilt on the part ofCanadians in contravening copyright law. As galling as the presumptionof guilt is, it is a small price to pay by the consumer. It should besufficient for all time to preserve fair use rights. It should allowconsumers of content to time-shift, media-shift, even share moderatelyand for non-commercial purposes with friends without fear ofsurveillance, suit, damages or imprisonment.

The role of the Canadian government in this ought to be clear: tobalance the rights of ordinary citizens, creators of content and thecommercial entities that market and distribute that content. It is anopen secret that the commercial entities regularly abuse the creatorsand they are doing whatever they can in any jurisdiction that willlisten to them to extend that abuse to the consumers of that contentas well. To have to pay some money every time a song is played --especially to groups who manifestly do not have the best interests ofthe artists at heart -- is untenable, unconscionable and an undueintrusion into the lives of ordinary Canadians.

If the end result of "failing" to pass legislation like this in Canadameans that less and less large-company media comes to Canada that maynot be all bad -- but we all know that that end-game will result insuch widespread piracy that it will not be to anyone's benefit.

Do us all a favour and tell these extortionists (the MPAA, the RIAAand others) to take their blank-media surcharge and be quiet. Once andfor all. The consequences of not doing so include all kinds of ills,not least of which is the further disaffection of thousands of youngervoters who will get the message loud and clear if legislation likethis ever passes, that whomever the government of Canada is for, it'scertainly not for them. And that would be a serious breach of what youwere sent to Ottawa for: ultimately as the guardians of thesovereignty of Canada, a trust too sacred for the kind of quicksell-out a Canadian DMCA would represent.